Medical Marijuana

Authorities from Lansing to Oakland County further tightened their grip this week on those they said abused Michigan's medical-marijuana law over the protests of those who use and distribute the drug for health purposes.

A state Appeals Court decision Tuesday -- the second such ruling in a week against medical-marijuana users -- upheld the conviction of a man arrested for possession of marijuana after he obtained a state card as an approved user. But the man, who lives in Montmorency County east of Gaylord, had been growing marijuana before he got the card, according to evidence in the case.

In Oak Park, four people from a major medical-marijuana operation were arraigned Wednesday on drug possession and conspiracy charges. The arrests of two principals from Big Daddy's Management Group and two of their caregivers -- those who are approved by the state to supply marijuana to patients -- came eight months after a January raid by the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team of the Big Daddy's complex.

The operation has a compassion club, where approved patients meet to discuss their health concerns; rows of safes where caregivers keep their marijuana, and a warehouse that supplies shops selling indoor-cultivation equipment in Burton, Chesterfield Township, Detroit and Livonia, employees said.

"What kills me -- one county and one city will write us right into their ordinances to let us do what we do, and here in Oakland County they're running us out," Big Daddy's owner Rick Ferris said.

Marijuana does so much more than most people think, it helps people around the world and so many are missing out on this amazing plant becuase of bullshit politics.

Jamey Raines tried marijuana once or twice in high school, but he said he had no interest in it after he joined the Army in 2000. He served in heavy combat in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 and rose through the ranks from private to platoon sergeant. Along the way he drank and smoked cigarettes like many infantrymen do, but he said he was “100 percent against” using any drug in any form.

Five years out of the military as of next month, however, Raines has changed his mind.

Using marijuana, he said, was the only way he could control his intense anger and anxiety as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. The drug was a crutch, but a necessary one, he said, and it enabled him to go to college, earn his degree and land a decent job.

It succeeded, he said, where the fistfuls of prescription medications that Army doctors doled out failed him.

“The only way that I got through all that was that I smoked pot every day,” said Raines, 29, now living in Ohio. He thought of it as “the lesser of two evils [that] made it easier to go out in public, to talk to people, and easier to let things go when people say stupid [stuff].”

Lansing— Michigan Court of Appeals judges ruled a Montmorency County man with a physician-approved medical marijuana ID can be prosecuted for growing pot because he obtained the card after marijuana plants were discovered on his property.

The judges on Monday upheld the manufacture of marijuana charge — a four-year felony — against Brian Bebout Reed. Pot plants were discovered on Reed's property before he had a medical marijuana card, but he wasn't arrested until he obtained the identification.

"The statue ties the prior issuance and possession of a registry identification card to the medical use of marijuana," judges Patrick Meter, Donald Owens and Peter O'Connell said in the ruling. "Defendant did not have the card at the applicable time and therefore is not immune from arrest, prosecution or penalty."

The court reaffirmed that anyone looking to grow or use medical marijuana must obtain certification beginning to grow or use the drug. It is the second major medical marijuana ruling this month. Last week, the court of appeals banned marijuana sales at dispensaries.

According to court documents, Reed suffers chronic back pain from a degenerative disc disease and underwent surgery for the condition more than 10 years ago. He started looking to get a medical marijuana card after the passage of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

He went to a clinic in Montmorency County in the northern Lower Peninsula, but doctors said they wouldn't issue certifications because they receive federal funding.

Growing and possessing marijuana is against federal law, even if someone has a state-issued medical marijuana certification.

Reed looked for other places for certification, the appeals court said, "but he had not formally consulted with another doctor before his marijuana was discovered."

On Aug. 25, 2009, authorities spotted six marijuana plants on Reed's property while conducting aerial surveillance. On Sept. 16 of that year, he obtained a doctor's certification to use marijuana.

On Oct. 6, he received his marijuana identification card from the Michigan Department of Community Health. He was arrested Oct. 26 and charged.

Police arrived "when we opened at 10 o'clock (this morning)," and asked to see the owner and his daughter, said Rick Thompson, a Big Daddy's board member.

Today's arrests follow a January raid of the offices, which include Big Daddy's Compassion Center where patients use marijuana and "network for education and learning what helps them," Thompson said. During that raid, Oakland County deputies seized $2,500, 37 ounces of "usable medicine," and various pieces of medical-marijuana equipment, owner Rick Ferris said today.

Riverside City Attorney Greg Priamos now has another weapon in his fight against medical marijuana dispensaries: the power to subpoena.

The City Council last week voted to let the city attorney's office use legislative subpoenas when people connected with dispensaries won't cooperate.

Medical marijuana proponents say state law gives dispensaries the right to operate within certain guidelines. However, Riverside officials maintain the city zoning code bans medical marijuana facilities citywide.

Priamos said he has used legislative subpoenas before, when the city was seeking to close group homes for parolees that did not have permits. He already has filed 15 lawsuits against marijuana dispensaries, some of which have closed.

"We are having quite a bit of difficulty with property owners ... that are leasing their property to dispensaries in knowing violation of our zoning code," Priamos said. "The subpoenas are necessary to get additional information."

For example, Priamos said he might subpoena copies of lease documents to determine how much rent is being charged, if it's being paid in cash, and whether the owner knew the tenant planned to operate a dispensary.

In Craig Celse's case, the lease likely would show he had no idea his tenant intended to run a dispensary. Celse is cooperating with the city, which earlier this month shut down a medical marijuana collective in a Victorian house Celse owns in the Magnolia Center area.

"All we had was a residential rental agreement," Celse said, and the house isn't zoned for business use.

Celse said the city attorney's efforts were successful regarding his property, and he has given the tenants notice to leave. For property owners who aren't as compliant as Celse, Priamos now can use subpoenas and seek court orders to back them up if necessary.

Priamos said he is investigating a number of dispensaries, but as of Thursday he had not issued any subpoenas and declined to say which dispensaries might be the first targets.

​Tomorrow will mark one week since Jerry Laberdee has eaten a meal. The 56-year-old medical-marijuana patient and dispensary owner has been in a Spokane County jail cell since last Tuesday, after he refused to take his court-ordered drug test. He's now pledging to go without food until he's released and allowed to take the medicine that he was legally authorized to take under Washington law.

Laberdee's daughter, 28-year-old Jessica Vogel, tells Seattle Weekly that she's had very little communication with her dad since he was locked up, but that she hopes his hunger strike will "wake people up."

"I want people to open their eyes and realize this is not just about marijuana, it's about our constitutional rights are being stripped away," she says. "People should be rioting in the streets."